


Brightest in Dungeons

by yet_intrepid



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Byron - Freeform, Gen, Literary Reference, tw: mention of corporal punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve-year-old Courfeyrac faces the cost of his expressions of liberty and quotes Byron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brightest in Dungeons

_Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,_  
 _For there thy habitation is the heart_  
 _The heart which love of thee alone can bind._  
–Byron 

“Lucien René Marie-Hilaire Léon Gregoire de Courfeyrac!” came a voice from downstairs. At the tone which mixed anger, disapproval, and pure frustration, twelve-year-old Lucien and all his sisters looked up.

“You’re in trouble now, Luc,” said Adèle, the sibling just younger than him. “What did you do?”

“Skipped out of class,” Lucien replied lightly, running a hand through his curls. “I was sick of talking about the grandeurs of the Crusades, and then it was no good going back for the rest of the day afterwards.”

“That’s the third time this month!” His older sister was mortified. “I’ll be shocked if Papa doesn’t give you a beating this time, Lucien. Most parents would have the first time you played truant.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets. “It’s my liberty. It’s worth it.”

Little Mélissande piped up excitedly. “What did you do when you skipped, Lucien? I want to know what you did!”

“I’ll tell you soon, Mémé,” he promised, grinning at her as his name was rang out again. “It was very exciting, after all—but right now I’ve got to answer Papa.”

And he trouped down the stairs, the girls peering out the door after him.

When he arrived in his father’s study, he gave a properly respectful half-bow, but ruined the effect by revealing an unquenchably cheerful face as he straightened up. “Hello, Papa.”

M. de Courfeyrac sighed. “Take a seat, Lucien.”

Lucien did. “Oh—did I tell you? I’ve been studying some English. My friend Jules-Martin learned some from the tutor he had last year, and we’re translating Byron together. It’s a very intellectual pursuit.”

His father’s eyebrows rose. “I wish you were always as dedicated to the acquisition of knowledge, Lucien. This is the third time in a month you have skipped school, is it not?”

No way around it, then. But Lucien didn’t drop his head. “Yes.”

Another sigh. “Why?”

He pulled a face. “Because it’s—it’s so constraining, and the teachers are wrong about loads of things, and I just want my liberty sometimes, Papa. I get good marks almost all the time. Why is it a problem if sometimes I’m not a model student?”

“Playing truant three times in a month is so far from being a model student that your marks mean very little in comparison,” M. de Courfeyrac scolded. “Lucien, you are my only son. You must learn to live up to the de Courfeyrac name.”

“And ‘living up to the de Courfeyrac name’ means calmly forfeiting your liberty to sit in useless lectures that you disagree with and submit to old teachers who don’t even know what they’re talking about?” Lucien folded his arms. “Papa, I just don’t want to. I don’t care enough about society’s opinion for that.”

“I’m sorry, then,” M. de Courfeyrac said, “because you’ll have to. You must have your Latin and your rhetoric and your history so that you can go to law school, pass the bar, and get a position in a firm or in the government. I do not always enjoy my work, either, but it is necessary. That is life, Lucien. You cannot run away from it in the name of independence and liberty.”

“Try me,” said Lucien, his eyes glinting. “I’ll find something better to do.”

M. de Courfeyrac, exasperated, hid his face in his hands a moment. “This is unacceptable, Lucien. You will have to be punished for skipping school, and you must understand not to do it again. I do not like to beat you, and in any case it seems to have no effect. So…”

“So?”

“So you will be confined to your room from now until Monday. Locked in, and if you so much as open the window to climb out, I’ll be obliged to take further measures.”

Lucien blanched. The same four walls from Friday afternoon until Monday morning, and _a locked door?_ “Papa—”

“I’m sorry, Lucien. You’ve made it necessary—you claimed your liberty during school hours when you shouldn’t have, and now you’ll have to give it up.”

“But that’s practically prison!”

“It is a few days of enforced seclusion. Do not be melodramatic, Lucien.”

 _Seclusion._ “So…I don’t get visits from the girls?”

“No. Your sisters would be a distraction from the reflection you will need to do. The servants will come with your meals and any other necessities.” M. de Courfeyrac opened a drawer in his desk and found a key. “If you have no more questions?”

He shook his head mutely, and they climbed the stairs together to Lucien’s bedroom. The de Courfeyrac sisters were watching as they came up; Lucien gave them as much of a smile as he could manage and stepped into his room, which already felt small and oppressive.

His father put a hand on his shoulder. “This is only so you can learn, my son. The value of the knowledge that you’ve been ignoring, the importance of doing unpleasant things for the sake of making a proper life. Don’t recklessly seize bits of liberty and give up how much you already have.”

And with that, M. de Courfeyrac stepped out and turned the key in the lock.

Lucien, indignant, desperate, and a little fearful of the loneliness facing him, went over to sit on his bed. There, sticking out of his textbooks on a spare sheet of paper, was a scratched-out French translation of Byron’s “Sonnet on Chillon.” He pulled it out and read it through, and a smile came to his lips.

Then he got to his feet and started to shout at his bedroom walls. “Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,” he yelled. “For there thy habitation is the heart, the heart which love of thee alone can bind!” 

The words echoed gloriously, and Lucien took heart. He spent the next few hours lying on the floor in a clumsy attempt to read Byron in English, the same sonnet running through his head all the while.

_And when thy sons to fetters are confined_  
 _To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,_  
 _Their country conquers with their martyrdom,_  
 _And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind._

He didn’t care if the words weren’t fully applicable. They were there, and he held to them, and he emerged from his room on Monday as undaunted as ever.


End file.
